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Oyster Pie

A baked oyster pie with pastry crust, oysters, egg yolks, breadcrumbs, and optional cream and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Oyster Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Butter a large dish and spread a rich pastry over the sides and edge, leaving the bottom bare.

  2. Drain some liquor from the oysters and place them in a pan.

  3. Season the oysters with pepper, coarse sea salt, spices, and butter.

  4. Add the chopped egg yolks and grated bread crumbs to the oysters.

  5. For a richer flavor, add ½ cup of cream and 1 tablespoon of flour to the oyster mixture before baking.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the oysters and some of their liquor into the dish with the pastry.

  2. Roll out the pie lid and place it on top, crimping the edges.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden brown.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Oyster + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Form the main filling and release savoury liquor that moistens the pie.
Rich pastry
Forms the crust that holds the filling and browns in the oven.
Boiled egg yolks
Enrich the filling and thicken it slightly as they blend with the liquor.
Grated bread crumbs
Absorb liquid from the oysters and give the filling body.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture to the filling.
Flour
Thickens the cream and oyster liquor into a looser sauce.

The step that matters

Assembling the filling before baking. Oysters release liquid as they heat, so the bread crumbs, egg yolks and any flour must be evenly mixed in to absorb it. Without this, the filling can become watery and the crust soggy.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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